Highest viewership of Downton Abbey in Seattle

More Seattle residents tuned in to premier of Downton Abbey than any other city. (PBS - AP Photo/file)

The numbers are in for the Sunday night premiere of PBS’s hugely popular Downton Abbey.

Preliminary ratings show it drew almost 8 million viewers – that’s four times the average PBS primetime rating.

Thanks to Downton Abbey Sunday night, PBS outrated Fox, ABC, and NBC. CBS ranked #1 with The Good Wife and The Mentalist – with 10 million viewers.

There were 100,000 tweets during the premiere

As a huge fan of the show, I am happiest about this detail in the ratings – Seattle had the highest viewership in the country Sunday night – beating out Boston (#2), Austin (#3), and New York (#4).

We here in the Pacific Northwest read more books, see more movies, and watch more Downton Abbey than anybody else.

We’re just too literate for our own good, and I love it.

For the uninitiated, Downton Abbey is a kind of upstairs, downstairs show about a well-off English family (with three marriageable daughters) and its extensive roster of servants – maids, and butlers and all that, in the early years of the 20th century.

It’s the brainchild of writer Julian Fellows, who won an Oscar for the screenplay of Gosford Park a few years ago.